The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-08-04


"seventeenthly" would find them fresh
and clipper. In those days there was
enough time for man to take an hour
to warm himself up to the subject and
an hour to cool off. But what was
necessity then is a superhuity now.
Congregations are full of knowledge
from books, fro:S newspapers, from
rapid and continuous intercommunica-
ton, and long disquisitions of what they
know already will not be abided. If a
religious teacher cannot compress what
he wishes to say to the people in the
space of forty-fve minutes, better ad-
journ it to some other day.
The trouble is we preach audiences
into a Christian frame, and then we
preach them out of it. We forget that
every auditor has so much capacity of
attention, and when that is exhausted
he is restless. That accident on the
Long Island Railroad some years ago
came from the fact that the breaks were
out of order, and when they wanted to
stop the train they could not stop, and
hence the casualty was terrific. In all
religious discourse we want locomotive
power and propulsion. We want at the
same time stout breaks to let down at
the right instant 1t is dismal thing
after hearer has comprehended the
whole subject to hear man say; "Now
to recapituIate," and "a few words by
way of application, and "once more"
and finally" and "now to conclude"
Paul preached until midnight, and
Eutychus got sound asleep and fell out
of window and broke his neck.
Some would say: "Good for him" [
would rather be sympathetic like Paul
and resuscitate him. That accident is
often quoted now in religious circles as
q warning against somnolence in church,
1t is Just as much warning to ministers
against proliXity. Eutychus was wrong
in his somnolence, but Paul made q
mistake when h9 kept ON until mid
night. He ought to have stopped at IL
o'clock, and there would have been no
accident. If Paul might have gone on
to too great length, let all those OF us
who are now preaching the Gospel re-
member that there is limit to reli-
gious discourse, or ought to be, and
that in our time we have no apostolic
power of miracles.
Napoleon in an address of seven
minutes thrilled his army, and thrilled
Europe. Christ's sermon on the mount,
the model sermon, was less than
eighteen minutes long at ordinary rate
of delivery. 1t is not electricity scat
tered over the sky that strikes, but
electricity gathered into a thunderbolt
and hurled, and ii is not religious truth
scattered over, spread out over vast
reach of time, but religious truth pro-
iected in compact form that flashes
hight upon tho soul and riyes its in
difference.
When the religious discourse of the
future arrives in this land and in the
Christian church, the discourse which
is to arouse the world and startle the
nations, and usher in the kingdom, it
will be a brief discourse. Hear it, all
theological students, all We just enter
ing upon religious work, all ye men and
women who in Sabbath schools and
other departments are toiling for Christ
and the salvation of immortals. Brevity
brevity
Oh, when the future religious dis
course of the Christian church arrives,
all the churches of Christ in our great
cities will be thronged. The world
wants spiritual help. All who have
buried their dead want comfort. All
know themselves to be mortal and to be
immortal and they want to hear about
the great future. 1 tell you, my friends,
if the people of our great cities who
have had trouble only thought they
could get practical and sympathetic
help in the Christian church, there
would not be street in New York, or
Brooklyn, or Chicago, or Charleston,
or Philadelphia, or Boston which would
be passable on the Sabbath day if there
were church on it (; for all the people
would press to that asylum of mercy,
that great house of comfort and consola-
tion.
A mother with a dead babe in her
arms came to the god Veda and asked
to have her child restored to life. The
god Veda said to her: "You go and
get handful of mustard seed from a
house in which there has been no sor-
row and in which there has been no
death, and l will restore your child to
life." So the mother went out, and
she went from house to house, and from
home to home, looking for a place
where there had been no sorrow and
where there had been no death, but
she found none. She went back to the
god Veda and said "My mission is q
failure you see l haven't brought the
mustard seed; can't find q place
where there has been no sorrow and no
death" "Oh," says the god Veda,
understand your sorrows are no worse
than the sorrows of others; we all have
our griefs and all have our heart
breaks"
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
We hear q great deal of discussion
now all over the land about why people
do not 90 to church. Some say it is
because Christianity is dying out, and
because people do not believe in the
truth of Gods word, and all that. They
are false reasons. The reason is be-
cause our sermons and exhortations are
not interesting, and practical, and help
full. Some one might as well tell the
whole truth on this subject, and so I
will tell it. The religious discourse of
the future, the Gospel sermon to come
forth and shake the nations and lift the
people out of darkness, will be popu-
lar sermon, just for the simple reason
that it will meet the woes and the
wants and the anxieties of the people.